Pol­lu­tant lev­els at Deonar were 40 times over limit

Con­cen­tra­tion of par­tic­u­late mat­ter (PM) at the Deonar dump­ing ground reached 40 times the 24-hour per­mis­si­ble limit on Tues­day af­ter­noon, when a fire rag­ing for more than a week was said to be brought un­der con­trol. The high lev­els of PM posed a grave risk to en­vi­ron­ment and health of peo­ple liv­ing around the 127-year-old dump­ing ground.

PM are tiny sus­pended pol­lu­tants, con­sist­ing of soot, chem­i­cals and or­ganic sub­stances, which can en­ter the res­pi­ra­tory sys­tem.

HT has ac­cessed pol­lu­tion lev­els from five types of PM (PM1, PM 2.5, PM4, PM10 and PM15) mea­sured by the En­vi­ron­men­tal Pol­icy and Re­search In­dia (EPRI) be­fore and af­ter dust sup­pres­sants were sprayed within a 200 sq m area in­side the dump­ing ground, to pre­vent toxic pol­lu­tants from dis­pers­ing in the air and sur­round­ing ar­eas. Even af­ter the dust sup­pres­sants were sprayed, con­cen­tra­tion of PM was 37 times higher than per­mis­si­ble lim­its.